Denying Justice In An Emotional Addiction Relationship

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Why is it so difficult for the victim to get out of the relationship with the abuser? It would seem that there is good. Almost nothing - humiliation, insults, devaluation, unfounded criticism, exaggerated control, sometimes physical violence. The list can be continued, but that is not the point, it is clear that there is nothing positive in this connection. Relationships do not fulfill their primary function of supporting, accepting, and meeting needs. What is there to hold on to? However, the victim holds on.

Even if she is very bad.

Even if she realizes that something is wrong here.

Even if she wants to leave, but time after time she postpones her decision.

There are many reasons. Here is the fear of loneliness, the inability to cope with the challenges of life, suppressed will and much more.

There is one more - the hope for justice. Sometimes it is this that tightly binds the victim to his tormentor, to the one who destroys her life.

The injured party feels that way and wants the perpetrator to see the damage done to them, acknowledge it and at least apologize. But this, as a rule, does not happen, because the abuser is simply not capable of such enlightenment. For the claims made, it usually sounds - "you yourself are to blame for everything", "you brought me", or even "there was no such thing, you invented everything." By now, the abuser have gone completely psychologically savvy, and can betray - “I was brought up like that in my childhood, nothing can be done about it!”. And you can't argue! However, this does not make it easier for the victim, and he still wants to restore justice.

Once, at a lecture at the institute, we were told about an endurance experiment on rats. They took a certain number of animals and threw them into an aquarium with water. The rats held out for 1 hour and, exhausted, drowned. Took another batch and again into the aquarium. At the end of the hour, when the rats had already begun to lose the rest of their strength, a ladder was put up for them, along which they all got out of the water. At the third stage, they took a batch of new rats and all those that survived and threw them back into the aquarium. An hour passed, all the new animals drowned, and those that had already escaped once, held out for another (attention!) 4 hours! Great power of hope!

Is it not this hope that keeps the victim close to the abuser, despite common sense? After all, once, at the very beginning of a relationship, he was so wonderful! And he brought flowers, and spoke gentle words, and even washed the dishes a couple of times. The wives of alcoholics recall with affection how their faithful bought potatoes into the house 10 years ago. In all seriousness!

All this would be funny if it were not so sad.

On the altar of hope sometimes fall "best years", health, career, friends and whatever, all life. Years spent waiting, as beads are strung on a string, hung around the neck and pulled down like a stone. Lowered shoulders, hunched back, dull eyes … And a bunch of diseases.

It's time to retreat, surrender and start restoring the trampled borders. But the hope for justice, the desire to obtain a confession of guilt from the abuser and to receive a well-deserved apology holds better than any locks. The doors are open. But the victim herself closes them from the inside, propping them up with a board for fidelity.

In general, this is the ability to understand when you need to show perseverance, to go to the end, and when to throw out the white flag in order to preserve yourself, is one of the most important.

It is very difficult to accept the idea that there will be no justice. Especially traumatized children who have grown into traumatized adults. This eternal pursuit of mother's love - well, this time I can please her, and she will understand how wrong she was, start to love and buy a bag of sweets. The victim can wait for years for justice and recognition of his merits - well, of course, I did so much for him! And she washed and cooked, and silently endured all the reproaches, and he was not bad in essence, he bought potatoes then. Maybe he will buy more … But he will understand everything, repent and buy.

But that won't happen. Never. This is a very difficult and painful realization. But necessary if you want to get out of the relationship with the abuser. Come out alive, keeping the remnants of faith in the best, in yourself and in the possibility of happiness.

Following the rejection of justice, there is a rejection of addiction and the possibility of restoring internal balance appears. How? A banal statement of everything that has accumulated, a designation of my feelings and a loud statement - that's enough for me! This is a completely different situation, not usual, when one speaks, and the other suffers silently. In the new situation, the victim arrogates to himself the right to vote, the right to defense and the right to choose.

Now both have the rights. And this is the only possible justice in such a relationship.